1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to paper products used by an end user to create their own cigars or cigarettes. In particular, the present invention relates to a paper for rolling tobacco into a cigar or cigarette and method of packaging several of the papers together.
2. Background and Prior Art
Materials or papers used for rolling smoking articles, such as cigars or cigarettes, may be made from a variety of materials such as reconstituted tobacco and paper. These products are commonly referred to as rolling papers or cigarette papers. Typically such papers or “leaves” have an edge coated with adhesive for sealing the rolled smoking article. Conventionally, rolling papers are sold in packs that include several interleaved papers, each folded in half intertwined with one and other. The lower half of each paper provides sufficient resistance to expose the upper half the next paper sheet within an aperture in the top of the pack so that the second sheet can be easily removed as desired. The removed rolling papers are then rolled and sealed using the adhesive, which adhesive properties may be activated by saliva.
However, the half-way fold often does not allow for efficient rolling and sealing of the paper and may result in undesirable characteristics in the smoking product, such as a loosely or improperly rolled cigarette. This can result in uneven or ineffective burning of the tobacco products. As a result, the rolling papers have to be refolded or torn to resize the papers before using, which can damage the paper and/or provide air channels with the existing or new folds, thereby providing a less than satisfactory smoking product made with the rolling papers. In addition, if the end user desires to make a cigar or cigarette with a certain diameter, it may be necessary to resize the paper by tearing or other means to remove part of the side that does not include the adhesive strip before rolling the cigar or cigarette. Hence, for conventional rolling papers, it is inconvenient to have to refold or resize the paper and those actions may result in cigars or cigarettes that have undesirable characteristics or are inconsistent in size.
Also, when the rolling papers are folded in half, the adhesive may contact and inadvertently adhere to another part of the rolling paper, such as the far edge of the paper. An inadvertent adherence of the adhesive portion of the rolling paper may make the tobacco rolling and sealing process difficult, render the rolling paper useless for the intended purpose or result in the paper becoming less than effective for the rolling and sealing process.
Further, conventional rolling papers are sold at standard heights. Containers for holding such papers are designed for the half-folded paper and may not be suitable for rolling papers having different heights than normally used and having a fold that is off-center.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved rolling paper so that it can be used by an end user to create cigar or cigarette of the desired diameter without the need to refold or resize the paper and to improve the packaging for those papers so that it can effectively dispense the improved paper.